Saturday, May 9, 2009

Darkfail













Nothing creates more drama on the internetz than a good darkfail flame thread.

   I need to comment on this because I think that it is a trend that we will all look back and laugh about, is the reception of Adventurine's Darkfall Online. Released last month to a huge fan base that has been waiting for this game like a ravenous pack of wolves for years. Yes, it's been years, I signed up for the beta back in 2006 when was playing the late hell gate London. This game was dubbed vaporware for a long time until news of a beta was released. This created a huge buzz on the internet gamer forums, both on Darkfall's forums and other popular game forums. One in particular is MMORPG.com, which I subscribe to and goes indepth to actually rate these games by a "hype" level before they are released. But back to Darkfall, in short is a takeoff on the old Ultima Online that was heavily PVP (player vs player) based where you could actually "loot" the player you just killed for his armor and weapons etc. Extremely popular game design that made Darkfall in instant hit. Some gamers like to cause grief to other players and I personally think that pvp is more fun that killing stupid AI driven monsters, it takes sometimes more skill and quicker thinking. 

    Ok, the darkfall beta was nonexistent and the game was released way before it was ready. Not only that, but it had a VERY limited release of only 10,000 copies of the game. Ten thousand? That was just the average daily volume of maybe 1 hour of unique traffic on the forums. Instantly, it became a cult hit and everyone was scrambling for their copy. Me, I couldn't find one hell or high water, so I gave up on the game. But I read all the genie pig reports of how the game was, it had terrible reviews. It was glitchy, the queue's were horrendous, full of hackers and cheaters. More importantly they said the game was downright boring. Saved my 50 bucks, thanks MMORPG(dot)com!

   But wait, there is more... I started seeing all these "Darkfall sucks" thread pop up and started reading them. So funny, these guys slashed, bashed and trashed this game more than a Brittany Spears concert. OMG, why?!>!

Infamy, I feel is one of the best marketing techniques ever used. It creates a desire to "let's just see how bad it really is". Sort of like when someone blows a nasty fart in public, you know when someone else says "EWW, that stinks", you need to take a big whiff before running away. Darkfall Online right now has infamy especially when websites start writing Hate reviews online, like the one from Eurogamer.net. That started a flurry of posts on forums that immediately turned into an old school frag fest that resembles the Quake days. 

   All in all, I hope whatever issues they have they can resolve and that this game lasts long enough to prove all the naysayers wrong. I posted 2 article that I think are interesting new takes on business models for for small startup companies. One is the 1,000 fan theory and the second is a story about this small company, Flashbang Games and how they are really surviving on this business model. Will this work for Adventurine, I truly couldn't tell you. But if they continue to be controversial it will help market them without paying for a cent of advertising. That gives light to the trendy new term "Going Viral", which is a take on the old viral marketing method.

Whatever the case may be, I haven't played Darkfall and don't intend to. There are way too many games out there and many more on the horizon that will take up my time (and my money). I just don't have either enough to spare to see if a pile of shit really stinks as bad as someone says it does, I'll just take their word for it.
Play safe,
Ink


No comments: